Halloween (1978)
(United States) (Australia)|budget = $325,000|gross = $47 million|followed = Halloween II}}Halloween is a 1978 American independent slasher horror film directed and scored by John Carpenter, co-written with producer Debra Hill, and starring Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis in her film debut. The film was the first installment in what has become the Halloween franchise. The plot is set in the fictional Midwestern town of Haddonfield, Illinois. On Halloween night in 1963, a six-year-old Michael Myers murders his older sister by stabbing her with a kitchen knife. Fifteen years later, he escapes from a psychiatric hospital, returns home, and stalks teenager Laurie Strode and her friends. Michael's psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis suspects Michael's intentions, and follows him to Haddonfield to try to prevent him from killing. Halloween was produced on a budget of $300,000 and grossed $47 million at the box office in the United States, and $70 million worldwide, equivalent to $250 million as of 2014, becoming one of the most profitable independent films. Many critics credit the film as the first in a long line of slasher films inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960). Halloween had many imitators and originated several clichés found in low-budget horror films of the 1980s and 1990s. Unlike many of its imitators, Halloween contains little graphic violence and gore. In 2006, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Some critics have suggested that Halloween may encourage sadism and misogyny by identifying audiences with its villain. Other critics have suggested the film is a social critique of the immorality of youth and teenagers in 1970s America, with many of Myers's victims being sexually promiscuous substance abusers, while the lone heroine is depicted as innocent and pure, hence her survival. Nevertheless, Carpenter dismisses such analyses. Several of Halloween 's techniques and plot elements, although not founded in this film, have nonetheless become standard slasher movie tropes. Halloween spawned a franchise which included seven sequels and two remakes, while recently receiving another upcoming product related to the franchise in 2016 known as Halloween Returns. Over the years, Halloween has received universal praise and is considered one of the most important and influential horror films of the genre. Plot On Halloween night 1963, six-year-old Michael Myers (Will Sandin) stabs his seventeen-year-old sister Judith (Sandy Johnson) with a kitchen knife at their home in Haddonfield, Illinois. He is sent to Smith's Grove - Warren County Sanitarium in Illinois and placed under the care of psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence). After years of treatment, Loomis begins to suspect that there is more to Myers than meets the eye and plans to have him committed indefinitely. Loomis, sensing that a tremendous amount of rage and emotion stir behind Myers's blank stare, describes Myers as evil. Myers escapes from Smith's Grove while being transferred and returns to Haddonfield. Loomis pursues Myers. In Haddonfield, Myers stalks teenager Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and some of her friends. Laurie glimpses a man in a white mask from her classroom window, behind a bush while she walks home, and in the clothesline from her bedroom window. Later in the evening, Laurie meets her friend Annie Brackett (Nancy Kyes) who is babysitting Lindsey Wallace (Kyle Richards) across the street from where she is babysitting Tommy Doyle (Brian Andrews). After arranging to pick up her boyfriend, Annie sends Lindsey to stay with Laurie at the Doyle house but is murdered by Myers (who had followed them). Tommy sees him carrying Annie's body into the Wallace house and thinks Myers is the Boogeyman. Laurie dismisses the boy's terror and sends Tommy and Lindsey to bed. Myers later murders Laurie's other friend Lynda Van Der Klok (P.J. Soles) and Lynda's boyfriend, Robert "Bob" Simms (John Michael Graham), in the empty Wallace house. Laurie worries after receiving a strange phone call from Lynda at the Wallace house. She walks across the street and discovers the three bodies and Judith Myers's missing tombstone. She is attacked by Myers but escapes back to the Doyle house. Laurie stabs Myers with a knitting needle, a clothes hanger and a knife, but he continues to pursue her. Eventually, Loomis spots Tommy and Lindsey running from the house and finds Myers in the upstairs hallway. Loomis rescues Laurie, shooting Myers six times and causing him to fall from the house's second-story balcony. Upon looking out the window for Myers' body, however, Loomis discovers that he is nowhere to be found. Classic quotes * "I met him, fifthteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong. I met this... six year old child with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes; the devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... evil." - Donald Pleasence as Dr. Samuel Loomis. * "You know, it's Halloween. I guess everyone's entitled to one good scare." - Charles Cyphers as Sheriff Leigh Brackett. Production After viewing Carpenter's film Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) at the Milan Film Festival, independent film producer Irwin Yablans and financier Moustapha Akkad sought out Carpenter to direct a film for them about a psychotic killer that stalked babysitters. In an interview with Fangoria magazine, Yablans stated, "I was thinking what would make sense in the horror genre, and what I wanted to do was make a picture that had the same impact as The Exorcist." Carpenter and his then-girlfriend Debra Hill began drafting a story originally titled The Babysitter Murders, but, as Carpenter told Entertainment Weekly, Yablans suggested setting the movie on Halloween night and naming it Halloween instead. Akkad agreed to put up $300,000 for the film's budget, which was considered low at the time; (Carpenter's previous film, Assault on Precinct 13, had an estimated budget of $100,000). Akkad worried over the tight, four-week schedule, low budget, and Carpenter's limited experience as a filmmaker, but told Fangoria, "Two things made me decide. One, Carpenter told me the story verbally and in a suspenseful way, almost frame for frame. Second, he told me he didn't want to take any fees, and that showed he had confidence in the project". Carpenter received $10,000 for directing, writing, and composing the music, retaining rights to 10 percent of the film's profits. Because of the low budget, wardrobe and props were often crafted from items on hand or that could be purchased inexpensively. Carpenter hired Tommy Lee Wallace as production designer, art director, location scout and co-editor. Wallace created the trademark mask worn by Michael Myers throughout the film from a white Captain Kirk mask purchased for $1.98. Carpenter recalled how Wallace "widened the eye holes and spray-painted the flesh a bluish white. In the script it said Michael Myers's mask had 'the pale features of a human face' and it truly was spooky looking. I can only imagine the result if they hadn't painted the mask white. Children would be checking their closet for William Shatner after Tommy got through with it." Hill adds that the "idea was to make him almost humorless, faceless—this sort of pale visage that could resemble a human or not." Many of the actors wore their own clothes, and Curtis' wardrobe was purchased at J. C. Penney for around a hundred dollars. The limited budget also dictated the filming location and time schedule. Halloween was filmed in 20 days in the spring of 1978 in South Pasadena, California, and the cemetery at Sierra Madre, California. An abandoned house owned by a church stood in as the Myers house. Two homes on Orange Grove Avenue (near Sunset Boulevard) in Hollywood were used for the film's climax. The crew had difficulty finding pumpkins in the spring, and artificial fall leaves had to be reused for multiple scenes. Local families dressed their children in Halloween costumes for trick-or-treat scenes. In August 2006, Fangoria reported that Synapse Films had discovered boxes of negatives containing footage cut from the film. One was labeled "1981" suggesting that it was additional footage for the television version of the film. Synapse owner Don May, Jr. said, "What we've got is pretty much all the unused original camera negative from Carpenter's original Halloween. Luckily, Billy Kirkus was able to find this material before it was destroyed. The story on how we got the negative is a long one, but we'll save it for when we're able to showcase the materials in some way. Kirkus should be commended for pretty much saving the Holy Grail of horror films." It was later reported, "We just learned from Sean Clark, long time Halloween genius, that the footage found is just that: footage. There is no sound in any of the reels so far, since none of it was used in the final edit." Writing Yablans and Akkad ceded most of the creative control to writers Carpenter and Hill (whom Carpenter wanted as producer), but Yablans did offer several suggestions. According to a Fangoria interview with Hill, "Yablans wanted the script written like a radio show, with 'boos' every 10 minutes."17 Hill explained that the script took three weeks to write and much of the inspiration behind the plot came from Celtic traditions of Halloween such as the festival of Samhain. Although Samhain is not mentioned in the plot of the first film, Hill asserts that: “...the idea was that you couldn't kill evil, and that was how we came about the story. We went back to the old idea of Samhain, that Halloween was the night where all the souls are let out to wreak havoc on the living, and then came up with the story about the most evil kid who ever lived. And when John came up with this fable of a town with a dark secret of someone who once lived there, and now that evil has come back, that's what made Halloween work.” Hill wrote most of the female characters' dialogue, while Carpenter drafted Loomis' speeches on the monster Michael Myers is. Many script details were drawn from Carpenter's and Hill's adolescence and early careers. The fictional town of Haddonfield, Illinois was derived from Haddonfield, New Jersey, where Hill grew up, and most of the street names were taken from Carpenter's hometown of Bowling Green, Kentucky. Laurie Strode was the name of one of Carpenter's old girlfriends and Michael Myers was the name of an English producer who had previously entered, with Yablans, Assault on Precinct 13 in various European film festivals. In Halloween, Carpenter pays homage to Alfred Hitchcock with two characters' names: Tommy Doyle is named after Lt. Det. Thomas J. Doyle (Wendell Corey) from Rear Window (1954), and Dr. Loomis' name was taken from Sam Loomis (John Gavin) from Psycho, the boyfriend of Marion Crane (Janet Leigh, who is the real-life mother of Jamie Lee Curtis). Sheriff Leigh Brackett shared the name of a Hollywood screenwriter. Casting The cast of Halloween included veteran actor Donald Pleasence and then-unknown actress Jamie Lee Curtis. The low budget limited the number of big names that Carpenter could attract, and most of the actors received very little compensation for their roles. Pleasence was paid the highest amount at $20,000, Curtis received $8,000, and Nick Castle earned $25 a day. The role of Dr. Loomis was offered to Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee; both declined the part due to the low pay (though Lee would later tell Carpenter that declining the role was his biggest career mistake).11 English actor Pleasence—Carpenter's third choice—agreed to star. Pleasence has been called "John Carpenter's big landing." Americans were already acquainted with Pleasence as the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice (1967). In an interview, Carpenter admits that "Jamie Lee wasn't the first choice for Laurie. I had no idea who she was. She was 19 and in a TV show at the time, but I didn't watch TV." He originally wanted to cast Anne Lockhart, the daughter of June Lockhart from Lassie, as Laurie Strode. However, Lockhart had commitments to several other film and television projects. Hill says of learning that Jamie Lee was the daughter of Psycho actress Janet Leigh, "I knew casting Jamie Lee would be great publicity for the film because her mother was in Psycho." Halloween was Curtis' feature film debut and launched her career as a "scream queen" horror star. Another relatively unknown actress, Nancy Kyes (credited in the film as Nancy Loomis) was cast as Laurie's friend Annie Brackett, daughter of Haddonfield sheriff Leigh Brackett (Charles Cyphers). Kyes had previously starred in Assault on Precinct 13 (as had Cyphers) and happened to be dating Halloween''s art director Tommy Lee Wallace when filming began. Carpenter chose P. J. Soles to play Lynda Van Der Klok, another friend of Laurie's, best remembered in the film for dialogue peppered with the word "totally." Soles was an actress known for her supporting role in ''Carrie (1976) and her minor part in The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976). According to one source, "Carpenter realized she had captured the aura of a happy go lucky teenage girl in the '70s." Critical reception Although Halloween performed well with little advertising—relying mostly on word-of-mouth—many critics seemed uninterested or dismissive of the film. Pauline Kael wrote a scathing review in The New Yorker suggesting that "Carpenter doesn't seem to have had any life outside the movies: one can trace almost every idea on the screen to directors such as Hitchcock and Brian De Palma and to the Val Lewton productions" and claiming that "Maybe when a horror film is stripped of everything but dumb scariness—when it isn't ashamed to revive the stalest device of the genre (the escaped lunatic)—it satisfies part of the audience in a more basic, childish way than sophisticated horror pictures do." The first glowing review by a prominent film critic came from Tom Allen of The Village Voice in November 1978, Allen noted that the film was sociologically irrelevant but ceded that the Hitchcock-like technique was effective and "the most honest way to make a good schlock film". Allen pointed out the stylistic similarities to Psycho and George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968). The following month, Voice lead critic Andrew Sarris wrote a follow-up feature on cult films, citing Allen's appraisal of Halloween and saying in the lead sentence that the film "bids fair to become the cult discovery of 1978. Audiences have been heard screaming at its horrifying climaxes". Roger Ebert gave the film similar praise in his 1979 review in the Chicago Sun-Times, and selected it as one of his top ten films of 1978. Once-dismissive critics were impressed by Carpenter's choice of camera angles and simple music, and surprised by the lack of blood, gore, and graphic violence. Review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes reports 94% of critics gave the film positive write-ups based on 50 reviews, with a rating of 8.5 out of 10 with the general consensus reading "Scary, suspenseful, and viscerally thrilling, Halloween set the standard for modern horror films." Many compared the film with the work of Alfred Hitchcock, although TV Guide calls comparisons made to Psycho "silly and groundless" and critics in the late 1980s and early 1990s blame the film for spawning the slasher subgenre, which they felt had rapidly descended into sadism and misogyny. Almost a decade after its premiere, Mick Martin and Marsha Porter critiqued the first-person camera shots that earlier film reviewers had praised and later slasher-film directors utilized for their own films (for example, Friday the 13th (1980) (1980)). Claiming it encouraged audience identification with the killer, Martin and Porter pointed to the way "the camera moves in on the screaming, pleading, victim, 'looks down' at the knife, and then plunges it into chest, ear, or eyeball. Now that's sick." More than 36 years after its debut, Halloween enjoys a reputation as a classic and is considered by many as one of the best films of 1978. Themes and analysis Many criticisms of Halloween and other slasher films come from postmodern academia. Some feminist critics, according to historian Nicholas Rogers, "have seen the slasher movies since Halloween as debasing women in as decisive a manner as hard-core pornography." Critics such as John Kenneth Muir state that female characters such as Laurie Strode survive not because of "any good planning" or their own resourcefulness, but sheer luck. Although she manages to repel the killer several times, in the end, Strode is rescued in Halloween and Halloween II only when Dr. Loomis arrives to shoot Myers. On the other hand, other feminist scholars such as Carol J. Clover argue that despite the violence against women, slasher films turned women into heroines. In many pre-Halloween horror films, women are depicted as helpless victims and are not safe until they are rescued by a strong masculine hero. Despite the fact that Loomis saves Strode, Clover asserts that Halloween initiates the role of the "final girl" who ultimately triumphs in the end. Strode herself fought back against Myers and severely wounds him. Had Myers been a normal man, Strode's attacks would have killed him; even Loomis, the male hero of the story, who shoots Michael repeatedly at near point blank range with a large caliber handgun, cannot kill him. Aviva Briefel argued that moments such as when Michael loses his mask are meant to give pleasure to the male viewer. Briefel further argues that these moments are masochistic in nature and give pleasure to men because they are willingly submitting themselves to the women of the film; they submit themselves temporarily because it will make their return to authority even more powerful. Critics, such as Pat Gill, see Halloween as a critique of American social values. She remarks that parental figures are almost entirely absent throughout the film, noting that when Laurie is attacked by Michael while babysitting, "No parents, either of the teenagers or of the children left in their charge, call to check on their children or arrive to keen over them." Another major theme found in the film is the dangers of pre-marital sex. Clover believes that killers in slasher films are fueled by a "psychosexual fury" and that all the killings are sexual in nature. She reinforces this idea by saying that "guns have no place in slasher films" and when examining the film I Spit on Your Grave she notes that "a hands-on killing answers a hands-on rape in a way that a shooting, even a shooting preceded by a humiliation, does not." Equating sex with violence is important in Halloween and the slasher genre according to Pat Gill, who made a note of this in her essay "The Monstrous Years: Teens, Slasher Films, and the Family". She remarks that Laurie's friends "think of their babysitting jobs as opportunities to share drinks and beds with their boyfriends. One by one they are killed... by Michael Myers an asylum escapee who years ago at the age of six murdered his sister for preferring sex to taking care of him." The danger of suburbia is another major theme that runs throughout the movie and the slasher genre itself, Pat Gill states that slasher films "seem to mock white flight to gated communities, in particular the attempts of parents to shield their children from the dangerous influences represented by the city". Halloween and slasher films, generally, are supposed to represent the underside of suburbia. Michael Myers was raised in a suburban household and after he escapes the mental hospital he returns to his hometown to kill again; Myers is a product of the suburban environment. Carpenter himself dismisses the notion that Halloween is a morality play, regarding it as merely a horror movie. According to Carpenter, critics "completely missed the point there". He explains, "The one girl who is the most sexually uptight just keeps stabbing this guy with a long knife. She's the most sexually frustrated. She's the one that's killed him. Not because she's a virgin but because all that sexually repressed energy starts coming out. She uses all those phallic symbols on the guy." Accolades Halloween was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films in 1979, but lost to The Wicker Man (1973). In 2001, Halloween ranked #68 on the American Film Institute TV program 100 Years...100 Thrills. The film was #14 on Bravo's The 100 Scariest Movie Moments in 2004. Similarly, the Chicago Film Critics Association named it the 3rd scariest film ever made. In 2006, Halloween was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2007, the AOL 31 Days of Horror countdown named Halloween the greatest horror movie of all time. In 2008, the film was selected by Empire magazine as one of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time. In 2010, Total Film selected the film as one of The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time. American Film Institute lists *AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills – #68 *AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains: Michael Myers – Nominated Villain *AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – Nominated Influence Halloween is a widely influential film within the horror genre; it was largely responsible for the popularization of slasher films in the 1980s. Halloween popularized many tropes that have become completely synonymous with the slasher genre. Halloween helped to popularize the final girl trope, the killing off of characters who are substance abusers or sexually promiscuous, and the use of a theme song for the killer. Carpenter also shot many scenes from the perspective of the killer in order to build tension. These elements have become so established that many historians argue that Halloween is responsible for the new wave of horror that emerged during the 1980s. Due to its popularity, Halloween became a blueprint for success that many other horror films, such as the classics known as Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), would follow. The major themes present in Halloween would also become common in the slasher films it inspired. Film scholar Pat Gill notes that in Halloween, there is a theme of absentee parents but films such as A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th would feature the parents becoming directly responsible for the creation of the killer. There are slasher films that predated Halloween, such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Black Christmas which contained prominent elements of the slasher genre; both involving a group of teenagers being murdered by a stranger as well having the final girl trope. Halloween, however, is seen by historians as being responsible for the new wave of horror films because it not only used these tropes but also pioneered many others. A mass market paperback novelization of the same name, written by Curtis Richards, was published by Bantam Books in 1979. It was reissued in 1982; it later went out of print. The novelization adds aspects not featured in the film, such as the origins of the curse of Samhain and Michael Myers' life in Smith's Grove Sanitarium, which contradict its source material. For example, the novel's version of Michael speaks during his time at the sanitarium; in the film, Dr. Loomis states, "He hasn't spoken a word in fifteen years." In 1983, Halloween was adapted as a video game for the Atari 2600 by Wizard Video. None of the main characters in the game were named. Players take on the role of a teenage babysitter who tries to save as many children from an unnamed, knife-wielding killer as possible. The game was not popular with parents or players and the graphics were simple, as was typical in Atari 2600 games. In another effort to save money, most versions of the game did not even have a label on the cartridge. It was simply a piece of tape with "Halloween" written in marker. The game contained more gore than the film, however. When the babysitter is killed, her head disappears and is replaced by blood pulsating from the neck. The game's primary similarity to the film is the theme music that plays when the killer appears onscreen. Sequels Halloween II Halloween's success led inevitably to a sequel. In 1981, Akkad sold the film rights to maverick producer Dino DeLaurentis (though Akkad was still actively involved in production of any films that used those rights). Later that year, DeLaurentis (in partnership with Universal Pictures) released Halloween II, also written by Carpenter, but this time directed by Rick Rosenthal. It was designed to pick up precisely where the 1978 original left off, in fact taking place on the same night the original movie ended. At the time, this sequel was intended to be the final chapter of the series. Critics generally agreed it was not the calibre of its predecessor. Carpenter himself was extremely displeased with the end result, describing it as "about as scary as an episode of Quincy" and, reportedly, reshooting many scenes himself. Retrospectively, it is now generally considered by far the best of the sequels. Many of the original films' fans are disenchanted by the seemingly endless spate of further sequels featuring Michael Myers, which are perceived as cynically-motivated moneymakers, rather than quality horror films made by dedicated filmmakers with a love for the originals and a genuine artistic vision. Halloween III: Season of the Witch A third film in the series, Halloween III: Season of the Witch was released in 1982, also by Universal Pictures. It was directed by Tommy Lee Wallace, with John Carpenter only acting as producer. Whereas the first sequel was a direct continuation of the original story, Halloween III was an entirely unrelated film. Many were disappointed that Michael Myers did not return in this entry, although it was Carpenter himself who felt that the Myers storyline could not be extended any further. Post-Carpenter sequels :Main articles: Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers John Carpenter was to play no further part in the series, other than supplying the original Halloween theme music. In 1988 (the tenth anniversary of the release of the original movie), Moustapha Akaad bought back the rights to the series from Dino DeLaurentis, and produced Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. The film (which was released independently) brought both murderer Michael Myers and Dr. Loomis back from their graves (in Hollywood scriptwriting tradition). The success of this sequel inspired yet another the following year, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, also released independently. Dimension Films sequels :Main articles: Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, Halloween: Resurrection In 1995, the sequel rights were sold again, this time to Miramax Films (via its Dimension Films division). Miramax/Dimension then released Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, which partially told the story of Michael Myers' origins. Joe Chappelle directed, but studio interference caused re-editing of the film and the re-shooting of certain scenes, leaving the door open for another sequel. Donald Pleasance, who had appeared in every entry of the series to date, died before Halloween H20: 20 Years Later could begin production in 1998 (the 20th anniversary of the first film). Halloween H20 marked the return of Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode (since her character had died sometime before the events of the fourth film, the continuity of the previous three films in the series are ignored and this film is treated as a direct follow-up to Halloween II). Both Halloween H20 and its follow-up, Halloween: Resurrection (2002), were produced in the same style as Dimension's previous 1990s horror films (such as Scream (1996)). As of August 2006, Rob Zombie is signed on to write and direct a new sequel for a 2007 release. The film rights * Halloween ** Main rights: Trancas International Films (Akkad's production company) ** Home video rights: Anchor Bay Entertainment ** Television rights: Carlton/ITC Entertainment * Halloween II ** Main rights: Universal Pictures (Expired), Miramax/Dimension ** Home video rights: Universal Pictures ** Television rights: Universal Pictures * Halloween III: Season of the Witch ** Main rights: Universal Pictures ** Home video rights: Universal Pictures ** Television rights: Universal Pictures * Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers ** Main rights: Trancas International Films ** Home video rights: Anchor Bay Entertainment ** Television rights: Anchor Bay Entertainment * Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers ** Main rights: Trancas International Films ** Home video rights: Anchor Bay Entertainment ** Television rights: Anchor Bay Entertainment * Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers ** Main rights: Miramax/Dimension ** Home video rights: Miramax/Dimension ** Television rights: Miramax/Dimension * Halloween H20: 20 Years Later ** Main rights: Miramax/Dimension ** Home video rights: Miramax/Dimension ** Television rights: Miramax/Dimension * Halloween: Resurrection ** Main rights: Miramax/Dimension ** Home video rights: Miramax/Dimension ** Television rights: Miramax/Dimension Dimension Films also currently own rights to any further sequels in the Halloween series. Popular culture A Berts bravader illustration shows a videotape case of the film lying on a table, with the cover showing a screaming girl-woman and the text "Alla helgons blodiga natt" ("all saints' bloody night"), which is what the film was called in Swedish. See also In Wikipedia: *Halloween, the holiday the movie is named after, and around which the events of the films take place. External links *The official website of Michael Myers *Halloween Series Wikia *Halloween at theofficialjohncarpenter.com *Free movie database *Jamie Lee Curtis Category:Films Category:1970s films Category:Horror films Category:Thriller films Category:Horror thriller films Category:Independent films Category:Serial killer films Category:Slasher films Category:Teen films Category:Teen horror films Category:1978 films Category:English-language films Category:1970s horror thriller films Category:1970s independent films Category:1970s serial killer films Category:1970s slasher films Category:1978 horror films Category:American films Category:American horror thriller films Category:American independent films Category:American serial killer films Category:American slasher films Category:American teen films Category:American teen horror films Category:Films about psychopaths Category:Films directed by John Carpenter Category:Films scored by John Carpenter Category:Films set in 1963 Category:Films set in 1978 Category:Films set in fictional populated places Category:Films set in Illinois Category:Films set in psychiatric hospitals Category:Films shot in California Category:Films shot in Los Angeles Category:Films adapted into video games Category:Halloween (franchise) films Category:Films with screenplays by Debra Hill Category:Films with screenplays by John Carpenter Category:Sororicide in fiction Category:Teen thriller films Category:United States National Film Registry films